Truth 17
Give Them a Reason to Listen to You

I've been fortunate enough to do a number of presentations at large conferences. Sometimes attendees have to decide what presentations they want to see because multiple sessions sometimes occur simultaneously. If after a few minutes they see value in a session, they stay; if not, they may get up and leave to try out their second-choice presentation. There's certainly no intent to be rude; attendees are just trying to make sure that they are getting the best value they can. For the presenter, though, this is akin to being yanked off the stage with a cane. Every person you see walk out chips away a bit at your confidence and leaves you one step closer to being a quivering mass of jelly right there on the stage. It can be a very uncomfortable, but also very educational, experience. Trust me; I've been educated on this more than once.

A presentation at its core is designed to do one thing: to ensure that by the end of the presentation someone is smarter about something than he or she was at the beginning of the presentation. A presentation satisfies multiple objectives: to inform, to sell, to influence. But all these objectives have at their core to educate the attendees and teach them something new.

Presentation attendees don't just want to know what your presentation is about. They also want to understand why they should spend their valuable time listening to you. You can do only so much about the value assessment. If you are doing a presentation on the chemical alternatives to artificial photosynthesis, you probably won't attract a lot of people who got through high-school science by the skin of their teeth. However, at a school of botany in a major university, you may be the hottest ticket in town. What you can do, though, is take a few steps toward getting a high-impact message across to your audience:

• Get a very clear understanding of your audience's problems. If a pervasive problem among your attendees is how to manage business risks, don't do a general presentation on business management with risk management as a by-the-way topic. Consider focusing your message specifically on managing business risks or have business risks as a major subtopic.
• Be provocative. Do you have an opinion that flies in the face of conventional wisdom? Or maybe a viewpoint that is different from that of your colleagues? Put it out there! Capture your audience's interest by challenging common beliefs or presenting something that is new, innovative, and creative. Your audience wants to be mentally stimulated, so do it.
• Have a compelling teaser or summary. Prepare a short summary (no more than a paragraph) of what your presentation is about and what you want your attendees to learn from the presentation. To test how compelling the summary is, ask a friend or colleague to read it and give you his or her knee-jerk reaction. I emphasize kneejerk because that is exactly what a prospective attendee will do: he or she will read it and quickly decide whether it is valuable for him or her to attend.
• Tell your audience very specifically what you want them to get out of your presentation. If you want someone to learn about chemical alternatives to artificial photosynthesis and how these alternatives will benefit the world in the future, tell them as clearly and specifically as you can. If you're doing a sales presentation and you want a company to buy your product, tell them that you want to demonstrate how your product will clearly benefit them. Just put it out there, and don't be vague or covert in your message; if you didn't want something from your audience, you wouldn't be there.
• Captivate them in the first few minutes of your presentation. Just because an attendee is in the room doesn't mean that he or she will stay or give you his or her mindshare throughout your presentation. In the first few minutes, make each attendee want to listen to you. I'm not talking about cute stories about your vacation or an "I'm a lighthouse"-type story. I'm talking about a real-life experience or some interesting factoids that will make someone sit up and want to listen to what you have to say.

Make each presentation attendee want to listen to you.

Getting your point across while delivering presentations is so much more than disseminating information. People have to want to hear what you have to say. Knowing your audience's problems, being provocative, having a clear summary, telling them what you want them to learn, and captivating them early in the presentation will ensure that your presentation message is clear and that they'll have a good reason to spend their time listening to you.